You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!

Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.

If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.

Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.

Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

Hi, I'm trying to set up an Access Point for my wireless network with hostapd. I have problems setting it right. Here it is the output of starting the server /etc/rc.d/rc.hostapd start after setting the config file /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf like in http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:net...s_access_point

Hi, mitusf. My wreched self am using the infamous RTL8192 currently. The firmware gets loaded only when the interface is brought up. I don't remember if it was the same for RT5370 (is this your chip?).

Wicd should bring up the interface before doing wireless operations (e.g. scanning). If not, it's a bug in wicd.

If you can confirm your problem is due to the firmware not loaded, we can devise a workaround.

Hi guanx, yes, it's the RT5370 chip on the card. It is not recognized by iwconfig (only by ifconfig), the card blinks, the driver is loaded by udev at boot, no indication about using any firmware, but I haven't tried to remove the rt* firmwares to see how it works (or not), not recognized by iwconfig so, therefor not working under wicd. It's very strange. You know, that the card works with the ralink driver, by manually loading it, after removing rt2800usb, rt2800lib, rt2x00usb, rt2x00lib, but not removing mac80211 (requiered by hostapd, but has still problem initializing the nl80211 driver this way, probably not correctly done all the linking when inserted the driver into the kernel).

So, I am looking at buying another card, an edimax-EW7811Un and I hope it will work and maybe returning the current one.

So your RT5370 still does not show up in iwconfig even after brought up with ifconfig? That's strange. BTW, my RT5370 works directly with stock kernel (i.e. the rt2800usb driver).

With EW7811Un (RTL8188CUS) I have no experience. I do use RTL8192CU, which shares the same drivers (both Linux driver and manufacturer driver) with RTL8188CUS. RTL8192CU's performance is measurable better than RT5370's, but the driver quality is much lower. Hope you good luck!

I've bought the edimax-EW7811Un today. The card is working under RPi, there was the driver already installed for it (8192cu module), although the device has it's own manufacturer driver but it's practically impossible to build and install it, it's a mess. Although the device is working, there are still problems with hostapd, fact which bothers me enough. Do you know if your RTL8192CU chip based device is working with hostpad and what is it's store name?

Beware the followings may not apply to your case because my USB WiFi adapter (TL-WN823N) has RTL8192CU but your EW-7811Un seems to have RTL8188CUS. They share the same drivers, though.

With neither the official Linux driver (rtl8192cu.ko) nor the namufacturer's driver (8192cu.ko) could I work with multiple virtual interfaces.

With the official Linux driver I don't (yet) have problems in station mode. It can work in AP (master) mode but stations are disconnected very often. The author of this driver is very busy, so if you don't plan to fix it yourself then don't use it for AP.

With the manufacturer's driver I had some success in station mode. But today, I've no idea why, I always get "cannot allocate memory" errors. I spent no time to dig out the reason because as I know you plan to run an AP instead. Using the hostapd that comes together with the the manufacture's driver package, I ran an AP and saw no problem until now.

A few notes for the manufacturer's driver:

To build as a module in a recent Linux kernel, it is necessary to export the "kernel_thread" symbol.

- first, it seems that there is no difference between the manufacturer driver and the linux driver: they share the same name 8192cu.ko, only that the linux driver it is placed into rtl8192cu subdir, but there is no indication that it has otherwise different provenience than the manufacturer driver.
- there is a problem with the manufacturer driver: after I compile and build it, the resulting module can not be inserted into the kernel - it results a "invalid module format" message being displayed. I have built the driver with:

Quote:

make ARCH=arm -C /usr/src/linux M='directory of the driver' modules

- with the linux driver though, I have tried to put it to Master mode with iwconfig, but it refuses to accept setting up essid after successfully changed to Master, and all other parameters like channel, enc, key (though I don't remember now in what configuration worked, maybe even with enc/WEP key or maybe only without encryption, anyway, essid setting failed after that and I don't know why). Anyway, I have managed thought to set up a working ad-hoc link, but even this way, only when the remote computer initiated the link and not the raspi comp (but I might be wrong here, I need to test it further to check for sure because it might be possible that the connection couldn't be established because of some failure to negotiate the Cell and need to be re-initiated - also I can't remember here the context in which the error occurred). Anyway, with this working Ad-hoc connection I still have to try to set it using rc.inet1.conf and wpa_supplicant scripts to see if at least I can manage to set up a good encrypted ad-hoc network if an AP doesn't work (through hostapd).

Hi, I'm trying to set up an Access Point for my wireless network with hostapd. I have problems setting it right. Here it is the output of starting the server /etc/rc.d/rc.hostapd start after setting the config file /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf like in http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:net...s_access_point

- there is a problem with the manufacturer driver: after I compile and build it, the resulting module can not be inserted into the kernel - it results a "invalid module format" message being displayed.

Are you building the module with the same toolchain with which the kernel was built ?

Quote:

- with the linux driver though, I have tried to put it to Master mode with iwconfig, but it refuses to accept setting up essid after successfully changed to Master

Hostapd should be the one that transition your wifi card into master mode and sets all the other options, you should not be doing that with iwconfig and/or iw. Have an extended look in the sample hostapd.conf provided in the sources.